INNOCENT VICTIM OF DRUG WAR

Regarding your Oct. 6 news story, " 'Compassionate release' may come in
time for Glancy to die in R.I.": If serious illness is a criterion for
releasing federal prisoners, then it is time for federal authorities to
release Rhode Island native and childhood cancer survivor Todd McCormick
from a federal prison in California, where he has been in solitary
confinement for several months.

Todd is a medical marijuana patient and victim of the Clinton-Gore
administration's failed "War on Drugs." Todd has a severe spinal condition,
tumors, cancer and the pelvis of a nine-year-old. His co-defendant, the
late author Peter Mcwilliams, an AIDS/cancer patient, choked to death on
his own vomit last June, because a federal judge ordered him not to use the
medical marijuana he needed to keep his AIDS medications down while on bail
awaiting sentencing.

Todd and Peter's so-called crimes have no victim. They are the victims of a
government so married to marijuana prohibition and the failed war on drugs
that sick people are criminalized and imprisoned. Why isn't U.S. Rep.
Patrick Kennedy standing up for Todd and other victims of this cruel war on
the sick and dying? Why are federal authorities releasing real criminals
like Glancy, who betrayed the public trust, while locking up the sick and
dying for using the medicine that works best for them?

GARY STORCK

Madison, Wisc.